We’ll cover the writing process from information gathering and drafting, through plotting and structuring a story. Whether you’re writing memoir, essays or simply for pleasure, you’ll learn creative techniques to generate ideas and craft compelling stories. This is all you need to get started!

One of the hardest parts about the non-fiction writing process is sifting through the tangle of information or memory for the core of the story, then deciding what is needed to tell it properly.

To that end, I’m delivering a special full-day workshop for writers aged 50 and older in Saint John later this month.

Finding the Focus is designed to help those writing about their life experiences learn techniques to transform memories into powerful and engaging stories. We’ll be exploring the elements of a story, and how apply standard storytelling structure and techniques (including plotting, characterization and setting) to enhance our lived experience.

It’s part of a series sponsored by the Saint John Free Public Library New Horizons for Seniors writer-in-residence program, so there will be no charge. Does it get any better than that?

Exploring our life stories from the perspectives afforded by age helps us to better understand the value of those experiences, leading to improved health and resiliency.

Sharing those stories is also vitally important, not only for our own well-being, but to strengthen our relationships with others and create ties of compassion between us.

Writing them down captures snapshots of our culture and preserves them for future generations.

“…you so inspired me to write the stories of my life. I loved your soft yet enthusiastic approach, your stories, and your prompts to motivate us. You were exactly what I needed to get me started, and although I am very much a beginner I look forward to learning more through any workshops you may give.” C. Ward

That’s why I am thrilled to be starting another series on life writing for seniors, beginning October 27, 2015, this time in Riverview, NB.

During this series of six half-day workshops to be held at the lovely Parkland seniors’ residence in Riverview, I will show seniors how the techniques employed in the craft of writing and storytelling can help them explore, examine and embrace the nature of their own personal stories.

Each workshop builds upon the one previous so participants should commit to attend all six sessions.

In 1883, Edward Jack, a provincial surveyor, dreamed of preserving a piece of the Appalachian Mountain Range to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Loyalist landing in New Brunswick. His vision only became reality in 1970 when Crown Land was set aside to create Mount Carleton Provincial Park, forever protecting the majesty of these mountains and chains of pristine lakes for the enjoyment of those who appreciate wilderness.

The park, located in the interior of the province, distanced from main urban centres, is a well-kept secret. It is surely a place of drifting and dreaming.

Evening paddles on silent lakes of sky and cloud, morning mist drifting through valleys, mountain hikes through endless forests and meanderings along mossy brooks and waterfalls…such are the gifts of Mount Carleton.

In my mind, I can still see fish leaping from polished ebony, the darting swoop of a pair of kingfishers, a trio of moose feeding at water’s edge, the watchful curiosity of a quartet of loons, and a sunrise that transformed the dark haunting presence of Sagamook Mountain to the warmth of a blush.

This is traditional Maliseet territory, valued both as a travel route, and a hunting ground.

Slow, watchful wanderings through dappled forests, the magnificence of the sun’s rise and sun’s falling, and the silence of night broken only by a loon’s haunting echo across the water or coyotes calling the moon – these invoked such tranquility of spirit that I felt bereft with our leaving. Such is why we need time in wild spaces.
As my kayak slid through a sunset reflected in Bathurst Lake, the space of silence broken only by a distant chatter of a squirrel, I couldn’t help but feel deep, abiding gratitude that someone, somewhere, long before my birth, dreamed of saving this wild place.

Sixty years ago today ~ June 8, 1955 ~ my mom and dad stood together in a small, white clapboard church pledging they would love each other for better or worse, rich or poor. Don slipped a diamond ring on Erma’s finger, then lifted her veil to kiss her and everyone smiled, as they do at weddings. Outside, the world was new and hopeful, and the lilac and apple trees swayed with their own glorious, fragrant wedding finery.

Sixty years is a long time. 21,900 days, if you were scratching them off on a calendar. Things change. Gravity shifts. People buy sneakers for comfort, not for good looks. But, I love that my folks still hold hands.

Two weeks ago, my own husband (of only 9753 days) and I took ten of those to help my parents celebrate the coming milestone. The four of us wedged ourselves and our luggage into the car and, packed in tighter than corn kernels on a cob, we headed west where we had rented a two-bedroom condo in the Green Mountains of beautiful Vermont for the week.

We wanted to give them a stress-free vacation to commemorate this special anniversary. We did the cooking, dishes, driving and deciding. They just had to show up and do the looking good. Which they did.

When we reached Vermont, they had a room with a king size bed and two-person hot tub. They may never be the same again. I suspect there must now be a king bed in their future.

While our mornings were lazy, our afternoons were spent traveling through sweeping farmlands and steep mountain passes, visiting waterfalls and water mills, and browsing cider, chocolate and cheese shops.

Vermont is a beautiful state that respects its past, protects its nature and promotes local. It’s important to know where you come from. Both parents grew up on farms, so seeing the farmlands, dairy cows and small, but thriving villages invoked their own childhood memories of community and working together. Mom and I browsed shops; the boys sniffed out foodie places.

As we traveled, mom kept meticulous notes about where we were,and what we saw in a small lined notebook, and they recalled previous trips to New England, keeping watch for the places they had stayed and dined.

Our evenings were quiet, and it was nice just to be around my folks. We read good books, watched bad movies, or sat on the deck watching the sun sink behind the mountaintops. One evening, my mom and I stood in our pajamas in the dark, watching fireflies dance through the trees. It felt like stars were falling all around us.

And we talked. And told stories…and remembered. I learned that my grandfather was too nervous to walk my mom down the aisle and told her he couldn’t do it, but my dad convinced him otherwise..

Their escape following the wedding was an orchestrated subterfuge that would rival any action-packed Hollywood movie, and dad was pretty pleased with the drama. He had $75 in his wallet when he took Mom on their honeymoon to Cape Breton and returned home with $5 remaining.

After the honeymoon, his ‘cronies’ finally tracked them down for a shivaree at my grandmother’s house. When the boys were done, the marital bedroom was in a shambles, drawers emptied, clothes tied together, and a mat was smoldering at the back door. ‘I think it was retribution,’ said mom. ‘For your father’s past deeds.’

And at the end of our week, the night before we packed to leave, my dad thanked me with tears in his eyes.

It was an emotional week for me, too. Because I’ve had to face the fact that my parents will not always be with me. And that’s a difficult realization for an only child to hold in her heart.

But there is a gift to be found underneath that realization. Gratitude. My heart could not have been more filled with gratitude for this extraordinary couple whose love created and nurtured my life. They were the rocks that gave me an anchoring security and rootedness that allowed me to grow into my own person.

It’s no secret that marriage has its share of twists, curves and obstacles. Navigating this tricky road requires skill, wisdom, patience, and forgiveness. It also requires countless daily choices, made by both partners, to do whatever it takes make it work, and to do so with respect, forbearance and dignity.

Because of their daily choices, I have the beauty of my own incredibly happy 9758 days with an extraordinary man. My ability to choose love, to feel love, to give love, and to hold love in my heart is the gift they gave me…and there can be no greater offering than this.

So, Mom and Dad…thank you for every one of the 21,900 days of living and loving that you’ve shared, and for the 19,994 that you invested in me.

Love you both. I am so proud to be your daughter. Thank you for hanging in there through it all.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.Ephesians 4:2

“The soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of the tree, and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might just put in an appearance.”

~Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

This quote has become profoundly meaningful to me…it has been a touchstone for my writing and also for my own inner excavations and explorations. It has been a pathway for my deepening awareness of and openness to beauty.

More than ever before, I am in need of the peaceful respite offered by silence, nature and beauty. I find myself ‘escaping’ more and more often to quiet places…and the very fact that I use the word ‘escape’ is significant to me. Maybe you are experiencing this within your own self, too.

With our natural world in flux, and our climate changing, we need more thoughtful souls listening to, learning from, and bearing witness to these changes.

We need more thoughtful souls writing about what they see and hear and experience of nature’scomplexities and wisdom.

Join me for Write in Nature, a weekend retreat taking place June 26-28, 2015, at the Tatamagouche Centre in Nova Scotia. We will be learning to listen for the voice of our Soul, and the voice of Creation….who knows what this conversation may evoke, and what writing will emerge?

This beautiful, peaceful location is a centre for social justice, transformational learning and spiritual deepening…the perfect place for this exploration of nature and words and wild soul.

Last Tuesday, I spoke to a room filled with Canadian veterans, sharing the story of my travels through the World War I battlefields of Belgium and how, while there, I unexpectedly discovered the value of my own heritage. I watched as some of the men and women present wiped their eyes.

They waited quietly and patiently, as I wiped mine.

Afterwards, they lined up to share fragments of their own experiences overseas. Although strangers, we connected in a very deep and tender place. For some, it is a very dark place.

Exploring our life stories from the perspectives afforded by age helps us to better understand the value of those experiences, leading to improved health and resiliency.

Sharing those stories is also vitally important, not only for our own well-being, but to strengthen our relationships with others and create ties of compassion between us.

Writing them down captures snapshots of our culture and preserves them for future generations.

During this series of three full-day workshops to be held in Fredericton, NB, I will show participants how the techniques employed in the craft of writing and storytelling can help us explore, examine and embrace the nature of our own personal stories.

Each workshop builds upon the one previous so participants should plan to attend all three sessions.

I don’t get a chance to blog much anymore, but today, in the midst of my work, I happened upon this online video. (Strangely enough, it is a British supermarket ad – here is the story of the making of the ad).

The story it tells took me back more than a decade and caused me to put my work on pause to hold the memory.

The year was 2003, and I was in Belgium to run a marathon with the Canadian Arthritis Society’s Joints in Motion program. That year the society had teamed up with the Royal Canadian Legion to bring both veterans and runners to take part in a marathon that wound through Flanders Fields, past war memorials and farmers fields where plows still regularly unearthed scattered bones. Participants ran or walked to honour either someone with arthritis or a war veteran. Some came looking for the graves of relatives lost in the war.

Two days before the marathon, we took a tour of Flanders Fields, which included a visit to the Essex Farm Cemetery where John McCrae wrote his famous poem; Langemark German war cemetery, with its mass comrades grave of 24,917 servicemen and another of 3000 school children; and Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth cemetery, holding almost 12,000 stones mark and a memorial wall listing the names of 35,000 soldiers whose remains were never found.

As I walked the endless rows of identical white tombstones, each memorializing a precious, irreplaceable life, and ran my fingers over the lists of names etched in stone, tears flowed freely. Most of these soldiers were mere frightened boys. I began to feel the weight of human sacrifice and enormity of the loss.

Later, we visited the ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’, and I wandered aimlessly through the displays, no longer able to take in more depictions of this political monstrosity we call war. Then I found myself standing in front of two pairs of soldiers. They faced each other, hands outstretched; two British, two German. The diorama depicted a Christmas truce on the battlefield – a moment when differences fell away and men reached out to each other as their own true vulnerable selves. I stood there, unable to move. Then I began to sob.

Here was a gift: a reminder that even amidst the direst of circumstances, the human spirit – and our inner desire for compassion and connection –- can quietly rise, courageous and unbeatable. This gift is called hope.